Pre-Posture-Ous A seat with personality
by Taylor Shih Media+Visual Communication Department Chang Gung University
Abstract In this technological era, people spend a lot of their time sitting down in front of a computer. The truth is, we do sit a lot. According to a study carried out by Dr. Steve E. Nissen in Food and Drug Administration in 2005, sitting in a poor posture for over 15 minutes can cause ‘muscle multifidus’. Therefore, how individuals sit at work or in the office, or during leisure hours at home has become an important issue in the medical and ergonomic fields. This study will explore the issue of multiple postures. When individuals use computers at desks, their postures are radically different from the postures of those studying a report, and accordingly, the posture of a cell phone user varies from that of a coffee drinker chatting with friends. People change their body postures several times during the same behavioral event, and a recent research (JRRD, Analysis of healthy sitting behavior, 2009) evidences that the ideal duration for changing postures during an activity is between 8 – 10 minutes. The objective of this thesis is to figure out the most appropriate (and interesting) posture people adopt whilst engaged in various activities such as reading, browsing online or listening to music. Additionally, a secondary aim to is connect the ‘past’ with the ‘present’ ¬¬through typography and its application via moulding onto the Corian cube. The study collects quite a lot of data from photography testing image, books on posture, thesis and Internet articles. This study provides a different perspective of human posture- using a more artistic angle and visual communication-oriented approach to solve this stiff ergonomic problem.
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Table Of Contents TITLE PAGE ACKNOWlEDGEMENT ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS
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CHAPTER ONE
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Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3
CHAPTER TWO
Brief and background Key research questions Aims and objectives of the study
Literature Review 2.1 2.2 2.3
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Anthropometry Postures as Body languages Otaku
CHAPTER THREE Design Argument
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CHAPTER FOUR
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Design Methods 4.1 4.2
CHAPTER FIVE
Preliminary Studies 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4
CHAPTER SIX
Brief and background Design methods and experiment protocal
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Categories of sitting posture Analyze and impact of sitting posture Dupont Home 2050 Workshop Dupont material - Corian
Discussion
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6.1 The influence of gender on posture 6.2 The most common posture – lotus 6.3 Additional research
CHAPTER SEVEN Conclusion
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REFERENCES
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CHAPTER ONE Introduction Aims,objectives and Key Questions 1.1 Brief and background Posture is widely used in art and design, from 1902’s “Le Penseur” to “Little White Man” recently; posture is always a good material. This study shows the variety and advantages and disadvantages of postures, however, the aim is, to find out the most comfortable and common posture of humankind. 1.2 Key research questions The questions below form the foundation upon which this study is built and the aim to fill the gaps that have been left by previous studies. They complement the aims and objectives outlined above. 1. How to sit? How to achieve the most comfortable posture? 2. How do posture relating to our inner emotion, behavior, even gender? 3. Is the chair in the market nowadays can provide an ergonomic sitting position? 1.3 Aims and objectives of the study The specific issues the study aims to focus upon and examine are listed below. 1. Collecting, and analyzing the variety of different postures. 2. To establish a relationship between human postures and human sitting behaviors. 3. To figure out the most common use and comfortable posture. 01 Different sitting posture: google 02 Le Penseur, 1902
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CHAPTER TWO Literature Review Posture in the measurement of science and culture 03 Sitting posture evolution: google
2.1 Anthropometry Anthropometry is a method to measure the human individual. The early purposes of physical anthropology is been used for identification of understanding human physical variation, especially in archeology and paleoanthropology. Nowadays, anthropometry plays an important role in many kinds of professional field, industrial design, clothing design, ergonomics and architecture, in which the statistical data is going to optimize products. In art, Yves Klein termed anthropometries his performance paintings where he covered nude women with paint, and used their bodies as paintbrushes. Today anthropometry can be performed with three-dimensional scanners. We expect this technique can bring us more contribution on science. (information from The Body Volume Index, “BVI�, in 2010.) 04 Anthropometry of the blue period, 1960 - Yves Klein.
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05 Anthropometry exhibit, 1921 - Harry H. Laughlin
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2.2 Postures as Body languages Posture can provide important nonverbal communication. First, by the definition of posture in Wikipedia, how the body is positioned in relation to another person or group of persons and how they are positioned relative to each other various body parts; Second, physique, which is how the body looks like. The truth is non-verbal communication developed in humans earlier than verbal communication, no matter posture or gesture. The same posture in different contexts, culture, even times may carry different information. Thumbs-up gesture, for example, has been recognized as excellent praised, good, wonderful, all the best information. However, in Nigeria, thumbs-up is considered to be insulting gesture; in Iran, and Iraq and many Middle Eastern countries, the thumbs-up is provocative behavior, almost the same meaning as vertical middle finger of the Western countries. In addition to guesture, a person’s emotion and position can also be read through sitting posture. If two people having a coversation, for example, the one who takes more relaxed attitude, such as legs on a table, hand under his jacket, or knee widely open, usually with a higher position; in other hand, a person with a lower position will act more cautiously, such as hands on the desk or hands on his/her laps, etc. Another example happens in waiting line, if two stranger sits next to each other, their will keep their legs crossed, and holding their elbows close to their body, trying to deal with their attitude less space. Thus, we know that posture can deliver more information than we ever imagine. Posture has its own language. Posture study is another kind of linguistics. 06 The posture of cultural differences: google
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07 Sitting posture: google 08 Body language: google 09 Postures analysis: google
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10 Otaku: google 11 Otaku: google
2.3 Otaku Otaku originally referred to someone passion and master in animation, comics and computer games, and now generally refers to someone indulge in sub-culture, and a very deep understanding of it. Japan, the place of origin, has generally been used and tends to neutral, which also have their own pride in being otaku people. In Japan, there is another term comes out, "Akihabara system." Which is because most of otaku are deep interest in animation and computer games, they have larger demand of electrical and electronic products than usual. So they use the term "Akihabara" to means the "Electric Street" of Akihabara areas in Tokyo, which is known for their electronic goods.
12 Akihabara: google
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13 otaku economy: google
However, in Taiwan, people misunderstood this term due to its non-literal meaning as the national language of the "home", and error explaining to be "reside". At the same time, thanks to Taiwanese media misusing this word again and again, "otaku" becomes a negative word in Taiwan. It is now used to describe a certain group of people who often stay at home, hanging around on the Internet, casual wearing all the time, and less socially-active with the opposite sex. However, "otaku economy" has grown rapidly during these days. Many people tend to "home consumption", choosing a lower expenses; smart designers and businessmen, such as "eBay" start to aim this market. "Money Weekly", a representative financial magazine published weekly in Taiwan, points out that express delivery services, online game, consumer entertainment, online music, Internet communications, computers-related equipment and computers retailers as seven industries under this trend.
14 otaku economy: google
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CHAPTER THREE Design Argument Soul or not? The modern furniture "Multi-functional furniture is becoming a must have and designers are working hard to produce pieces not only for their functionality, but also for their panache."——Quoted from Yanko Design, the designer of Side Chair, Alexander Kneller. However, a seat with wonderful function isn’t enough, designers currently are committed to solve the functional problem and visual modeling, but forget one important thing: users’ mood. We use a variety of postures during a day. Even though we concentrate on a task during some time, our postures are a bit different form moment to moment. Since we have different postures during one activity, why can a seat be so tough a shape that forces we to sit in an uncomfortable posture? Why can’t we have a seat with soul (or personality), which can have the correct shape that fits the circumstances we are doing? The author of this study wants to make a seat, which can directly deliver the user’s emotion to others; even, the seats can tell the personality of their users. For example, someone who wants to concentrate on his studies and avoid others’ interferences can sit on a chair that supports the posture which can maintain for a long time; and, the color or the shape of the seat can provide the information that have the same meaning as "Don't bother me!" that we hang in the front door of our own space
15 Multichair, 1971 - Joe Colombo
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16 Muti-pede chair - FADstudio 17 & 18 & 19 multifunctional chair: google
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CHAPTER FOUR Design Methods Plan to an experiment of testing photography 4.1 Brief and background In order to collect the enough amount of postures which individual will performe, I design a complete experiment to record Subjects behavior. Through this experiment, I can collect the most comfortable and natural posture that Subject will do inadvertently.The target group of my experiment is college students between 19 – 26 years old. (According to the research from ARO net measurement, group who age 20 – 30 has the great amount of using computer.) And I expect to collect 20 male and 20 female Subjects.) 4.2 Design methods and experiment protocal Experiment process can be divided roughly into the following steps: circumstance set-up, adjustments, and monitoring. 1. In circumstance set-up phase, I put a wood cube in a clean space, and prepare all the goods, such as magazine, comics, or computer, that we will need during the indoors activities. 2. In adjustments phase, I ask the Subjects into the circumstance I prepare and limit the behavior area they will be. For example, the Subjects can’t put their back to me; or they can only "sit" on the cube, no lying or sitting on floor. 3. In monitoring phase, I ask the Subjects to sit for 30 – 40 minutes. At the same time, I record with camera by side and take photos each when the Subject has change his/her posture. 20 Sitting posture: google
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21 The testing photography - photo by author
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CHAPTER FIVE Preliminary Studies Posture category and analysis 5.1 Categories of sitting posture This experiment has taken 20 male Subjects and 20 female Subjects of Chung Gang University students; the age of the Subjects is between 19 – 26 years old. The author takes the same amount of each gender in order to decrease the changing factor. To facilitate differentiate each posture to the other, the author has classified all the posture in detail as below: Left Leg-Crossed to another with open type: Left Leg-Crossed to another with close type: Right Leg-Crossed to another with open type: Right Leg-Crossed to another with close type: Holding the knee, standard type: Holding the knee, and hook the left leg: Holding the knee, and hook the right leg: Standard sit, standard type: Standard sit, few-wide-opened of knee: Standard sit, much-wide-opened of knee: Standard sit, cross-ankle: Standard sit, leg-extend: Cross-legs, standard type: Cross-legs, wide-opened with no crossed: Cross-legs, left leg hook above to another: Cross-legs, right leg hook above to another: Cross-legs, left leg hook underneath to another: Cross-legs, right leg hook underneath to another: Others: 22 Different sitting posture: google
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[A-1] [A-2] [A-3] [A-4] [B-1] [B-2] [B-3] [C-1] [C-2] [C-3] [C-4] [C-5] [D-1] [D-2] [D-3] [D-4] [D-5] [D-6] [Extra]
5.2 Analyze and impact of sitting posture
23 Sitting posture: google
According to the experiment, we observe that "Cross-Legs" ([D-1]) has been the most common posture at both genders under the condition we offer. The second place of male posture is [C-1]; and the third place of male posture is [C-2] and [D-5]. At the same time, female Subjects used to sit with [C-4] (second place); and the third place of female posture is [C-1]. The three top posture of each gender has reach over 55% of all the proportion. Thus, this five posture is the most common posture that people will behave. In addition, the author also figures out some interesting result that has the same conclusion related to "Body Languages" mentioned before. Posture has great influence to the difference of gender, male and female has shown very diverse result. First, the rule of “male left, female right� also exists in posture. Take "Cross-Legs" for example, male is in the habit of hook the left leg while the female hook the right leg. Second, perhaps with traditional Eastern cultural custom, female sits more conservative than male; this phenomenon can easily discover on "One-Leg-Crossed" situation and "Standard" situation, female acts close type more than male and cross their ankle instead of knee-open. 24 & 25 & 26 Pin up girl, google
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5.3 Dupont Home 2050 Workshop With an opportunity to cooperate with MVC (Media, Visual and Communication) design students of Chung Gang University in 2011, we make a testing sample of stool based on different posture. We come up with the concept of the people 40 years late can finish nearly everything with a notebook in his/her home life: contact with friends, buying clothes, money saving, even learning lecture through the Internet. Chair becomes an important role to humankind. Then, we think of that why can a seat contains all the posture we will behave during indoor activities? "Libre" is our final output, which offer a different kind of mood and atmosphere, it offer various attitude for user to see everything in the world. 27 Dupont, Home 2050 Workshop photo by Eleanor
5.4 Dupont material - Corian Corian is the brand name for a solid surface material created by DuPont. It can be thermoformed by heating it to 300째F (150째C), allowing unique shapes to be created. Its primary use is in kitchen countertops, bathroom vanity tops, and wall cladding in showers. In the fabrication process, joints can be made invisible by joining the relevant pieces with Corian's own color-matched two-part acrylic epoxy. The pieces are clamped tightly together in order to express any excess adhesive. Corian has more than 100 colors and patterns. 28 & 29 Dupont, Home 2050 Workshop, Libre photo by author 30 The testing photography - photo by author
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CHAPTER SIX Discussion Differences and similarities of posture 31 Lady image: google 32 Philip George Zimbardo: google
6.1 The influence of gender on posture After the testing photography, the results show that the posture to the two opposite sex have very different consequences. Female tends to a rigorous posture, such as crossing ankle, than male; the phenomenon especially happen in female with skirt. This result can be traced back to childhood habits. Base on traditional custom, female in young age were told to be a lady appearance, parents would strongly urge the girls sitting posture. Anoter version is female with a posture of ankle-crossed, the leg, in visually, will become much more slender than real. On the other hand, male perform a more casual and uncontrolled attitude on sitting posture. Crossed-leg like a Buddha or one-leg-hooked with crossed-leg posture in the male subjects were accounted for a large proportion, in addition, male sat in the sitting posture are also likely to be knee-opened to replace the ankle-crssed. Apart from the sitting posture type I mentioned above, the frequency of changing a posture also have great differences between male and female. By the same amount of male subjects and female subjects, male have 42% more posture than female when all the condition (time, place, things to do) is the same. According to a psychologist of US, Philip George Zimbardo, says that male have five times more likely to have ADHD (or hyperkinesis). It seems that the influence also reflect to the sitting posture. To compare with the literature I mention before, posture does have great affect on different sex, different condition, different cultural custom, and different living background.
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33 Lotus posture: google
6.2 The most common posture – lotus Base on the testing photography results; there is a new consequence out of my expectation. The most common posture from the photos I have collected is "lotus" (two leg ger acrossed one to another), the same sitting posture as Buddha. This is far different from the data of the first investigate on street, which shows the standard type and "one-leg-crossed" is the most commonly used posture. Different from the first (street) investigation and second (indoors) experiment, the change factor is "place" and "seat". The behavior what subjects act is affected by the place where it occurrence, the posture of lotus might not be appropriate outdoors. Furthermore, the activities people take indoors has restrict, too. Through the observation of the experiment, subjects must create an flat space to put on the notebook, and they choose the lotus posture inadvertently. Also, the seat I prepare for the experiment is a wood cube, similar to a stool, with no seat back. A seat without the seat back greatly reduced the posture of "holding the knee"; in the final result, only 8.8% of female and 6.9% of male take "holding the knee" posture in the experiment, total proportion of this posture is 7.7%. Compare with other posture, lotus posture take 45.1% of female and 42.4% of male, is the most common use posture in indoors situation. Thus, I infer that lotus posture is the most comforatable posture during indoors activities. 6.3 Additional research The results above are all external, obvious to figuring out. But, a seat with personality shouldn’t ended up like this; further, I need to know every living background and characteristic of my subjects. In the next stage of analysis, I expect myself can predict the possible posture that subject will perform when I know the subject's personality.
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CHAPTER SEVEN Conclusion What can posture be useful to us? Posture do a great influence to us, physical, psychological, cultural, educational, etc. To explore and know the myth of posture, the author takes several weeks collecting all the photos, information and theory of sitting posture. At first, the author photos all the posture that individuals can performed; however, knowing that the posture is a big issue, the author set the target group into "otaku", which linked to the experiment he takes for 40 subjects doing indoors activities in a limited area for 40 minutes. Then, some interesting results gradually come out during the experiment. The most important findings of this stage are "lotus" posture. Lotus is the most common used posture that people who doing indoor activities will perform. Secondly, we know that posture can be totally different through some factor, such as gender. Finally, although the people change posture all the time, I still sort out a pattern of sitting posture; I classify all the posture I have collected into about 20 kinds of specific situation. The application of my research can be advance in all kind of furniture: seat (chair, stool), lamp and hanger, or public installation art. In the following stage, I would like to pick three or four interesting or common-used posture into my design; I want to make a seat with personality, using the backgroung data I already have, and using new material – Corian to finish it. 34 Posture related product: google 35 The evolution of posture, google
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References Strangers meet: Laughter and nonverbal sign of interest in opposite-sex encounters, Karl Grammer IT kids: Exposure to computers and adolescents’ neck posture and Pain, L. Straker; P. O’Sullivan; G. Kendall; N. Sloan; C. Pollock; A. Smith and M. Perry Potential health problems face by an Asian youth: Population with increasing trends for computer use, Grace PY Szeto Dialogue in and bewteen differernt cultures, Marion Grein The new generation of e-Learners: Who is thinking of the children?, A/P Heather Fehring Analysis of healthy sitting behavior: Interface pressure distribution and subcutaneous tissue oxygenation, Jasper Reenalda; Paul Van Geffen; Marc Nederhand; Michiel Jannink; Maarten IJzerman and Hans Rietman Gender-based differences in postural responses to seated exposures, Nadine M. Dunk; Jack P. Callaghan Alterations of the lumbar curve related to posture and seating, J. Jay Keegan Posture as an interface bewteen biology and culture, Michel Heller Internet article: The impact new technologies will have on human evolution, Diana Adams Internet article: Chairs, posture and the alexander technique, Robert Rickover Internet article: Sitting posture - www.necksolutions.com/sitting-posture.html Internet article: Posture - www.physioadvisor.com.au
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Thank You
Pre-Posture-Ous by Taylor Shih